


a mess, distressed, i am unimpressed

by OverlyCheerfulRat



Category: Lab Rats (TV 2012)
Genre: Androids, Bad Parenting, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Child Murder, Dehumanization, Eating Disorders, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I know nothing of science, Sort Of, and oh boy can you tell, i do NOT know the difference between a robot and an android
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:42:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24881764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OverlyCheerfulRat/pseuds/OverlyCheerfulRat
Summary: The thing in his house looks up at him and smiles, and Douglas remembers that it is not human.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 27





	a mess, distressed, i am unimpressed

**Author's Note:**

> wrote this on the couch instead of taking a fucking snooze. basically i think it's unfair that douglas got a redemption arc but marcus didn't??? like the abusive dad is cool he can come back but we will kill the robot child twice. fuck that kid. tf??

"So what are their names?"

Donald looked at the four infants Douglas had brought home. Three of them were looking around curiously, wide-eyed and waving pudgy little fists around. The fourth was disturbingly motionless, and on second glance, he realized the baby wasn't breathing. "Douglas, oh my God, I think this one is d-"

"Relax," his brother said easily, poking the baby's neck. Brown eyes opened and stared blankly ahead. "This one is a little different. I figured it would be hard to integrate bionics into a human, so I practiced on this first. It's an android- it'll grow just like the human ones, but it'll be easier to take care of. More like a plant than a pet," he laughed.

Donald looked at the android, shuddering. It didn't blink. "What are their names?" he asked, trying to focus on the human babies.

"Names?" Douglas looked like he'd never considered they'd need names, which he hadn't. "Subjects A, B, and C. Do they need names?" Donald picked up the baby in the middle, smiling slightly when she grabbed at his shirt sleeves and gurgled. "That's the fast one," Douglas told him.

"She looks like a Bree," Donald replied, setting her back down. "And the other two... Adam and Chase." Noticing his brother's annoyed expression, he snapped, "They need names, Doug." He glanced at the fourth one and hesitantly picked it up, the recoiled in horror when it flopped limply instead of moving like a regular infant. "What the hell did you do to this thing?!"

Shrugging, Douglas took the android back. "It'll learn to mimic human behavior in time. No name for the robot baby, huh?" Donald glared at it.

"That isn't natural," he muttered. Months later, when he took the three babies under cover of night, he walked past the charging station Douglas had built for the android. His brother could keep that one.

"Daddy, am I a boy or a girl?"

Douglas looked to the toddler sitting across from him at the cafe. He'd been bringing it outside more lately, to try and get it adapted to society, hoping it would mimic human behavior. At the moment, it was staring intently at a family nearby. "Am I a boy or a girl?" it repeated more insistently.

"A boy," Douglas said to make it stop asking.

"How do you know?"

"Because I made you. Stop asking questions."

The android didn't need to go to school, but it would benefit both of them in the future if it at least understood what school was like. Douglas enrolled it under the first name that popped into his head, Marcus, and explained that it would be expected to answer to that. "I didn't know I had a name," it said, and if Douglas didn't know better he'd say it sounded happy. Which was impossible, of course. It was just a robot.

"May I go to Rachel's house after school today?" It always spoke like that, weirdly proper with no emotion. The teacher had quietly suggested to Douglas that his son might be autistic.

"Talk like a normal kid, Marcus," he said disinterestedly, flipping through a magazine.

"Yes, Daddy." A pause, then, "What would a 'normal kid' say?"

"Can I go to my friend's house? I don't know, I don't talk to kids."

"Can I go to my friend's house? After school today? Her name is Rachel." Douglas sighed and looked into the backseat, where Marcus was sitting completely still, as always. It was staring at the back of the seat in front of it. Everything was normal, except for this thing about whoever Rachel was. It shouldn't care about making friends. It shouldn't care about anything.

"Did this Rachel girl invite you over?" he asked cautiously.

"Yes. She told me that she feels bad for me. No one likes me. No one likes her, either." Did it sound sad? No, that was stupid. Douglas was just hearing things.

"I guess that's fine."

Douglas had never expected to find himself in the principal's office, but here he was, listening to an explanation of the fight his "son" had started at recess. He didn't listen to the principal, but on the drive home he asked Marcus what had happened. "Did they hit you first?" Self-defense was good.

"No. They were calling Rachel stupid. They made her cry. I pushed Cadence to make her stop and her friend Brian hit me, so I hit him back."

"Why would you do that?" Douglas asked after a minute.

"Because they made Rachel cry. Rachel is my best friend." And then Marcus smiled, something it was programmed to do, but it shouldn't have been able to do it in that situation. It shouldn't feel any emotions.

For a while, that was the only problem. Marcus adapted easily, and by fifth grade it acted like any other child, albeit a very intelligent one. And it only had the one friend. Douglas didn't care about that- what did it need friends for?- but the teachers said they were concerned about "social development" or something. Douglas became concerned for very different reasons when Rachel came over for a playdate. She was an ugly little girl with a dent in her skull- there had been some sort of accident when she was a baby. No wonder her only friend was an android.

Douglas let them run off to the guest room to play and largely forgot about them for a few hours, until he walked by the closed door and heard Rachel exclaim in delight. What were they doing in there? He stopped to listen. "That's so cool," Rachel gushed. "How're you so strong?"

"I'm really fast, too," Marcus told her proudly. "And, look at this!" A pause, followed by a gasp.

"I saw a movie called 'Carrie' after my parents went to bed, and the main character could do that too! It's called telly-kensis," she said knowingly. Douglas threw open the door and saw Marcus holding a hand out, concentrating on the vase it was making float in midair.

Rachel cried when Douglas sent her home early with a thinly-veiled threat to keep her mouth shut. Marcus cried when Douglas said it could never see her again. It cried harder the next day, when Douglas informed that the girl had been hit by a car. "An accident," he said, feeling no need to mention that he'd had it arranged. No one would have believed her if she'd said anything, but you could never be too careful.

"I'm not a real person, am I?" it asked one day, throwing its backpack on the kitchen table.

"You're an android. You know that," Douglas reminded it.

"But I thought we were like a normal family anyway," Marcus said, and again it sounded sad. Douglas looked at it and hesitated. What was he supposed to say? That they weren't a family at all? That Marcus was just a weapon?

"We are," he said gently. "Of course we are. We can... we can go that Italian place tonight, okay? Like a pizza night. The way they do on TV." And it was just like on TV, until they'd paid for their food. Marcus hadn't been built with a digestive system, which Douglas remembered when it went to the bathroom to make itself throw up. Afterwards, it asked if they could watch a movie or something, and it looked rather like a kicked puppy when Douglas quickly refused.

"Okay. Good night, Dad," it muttered, and went down to the basement. As it recharged that night, Douglas looked it over. It didn't need to breathe or blink. It was cold to the touch. He hated to see it naked, to see the doll anatomy he'd given it. It had no nipples, genitals, or internal organs. It had smooth, hairless skin that, on second glance, was also poreless. It could move in unnatural ways. But it also called him "Dad" and seemed so eager for his approval. It had a Barbie doll kept in the guest room, a gift from Rachel that it refused to get rid of. It liked music and plays.

The day after Douglas escaped his collapsing house, he bought a new place, far away. He never went back to look at the wreckage. There was something under there, and he couldn't decide what: either a boy who died trying to please his father, or a machine that completed the job it was built for.

He didn't waste time mourning either one.


End file.
